UEFA Super Cup, lifting the Intercontinental Cup and now reaching the semifinals of the revamped Club World Cup. Still, not every trophy hides the fact that something’s missing. Kroos was the team’s quiet center of gravity, the player who held everything together without needing to dominate the spotlight. And now, even he’s saying what most people at the club won’t admit out loud — Real Madrid is still searching for someone like him and hasn’t found anyone yet.
You can see it clearly on the pitch. It’s not just about passing or technical ability, it’s about a kind of tactical awareness that’s almost impossible to teach. Very few players in the world have it. In a recent interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, Kroos summed it all up in one short but telling sentence, “They’re still looking for a profile like mine.” And that’s really what it comes down to. The team kept playing, kept competing, but something about the way they move and think on the field just hasn’t felt the same.
The coaching change happened right in the middle of all this
Xabi Alonso took over with barely five matches to work with so far, but even in that short time, you can already see the structure shifting. He’s trying to reshape the midfield and figure out how to replace the irreplaceable. Arda Güler, still early in his development, has been dropped deeper into the field than usual, asked to fill space Kroos used to command without effort. That’s not a role you can grow into overnight. Kroos wasn’t just part of the system, he was the system. He controlled the tempo, knew when to slow things down, when to push, when to pause. Most of it happened off-camera, and that’s exactly why it worked.
Since he left, Real Madrid hasn’t signed a single midfielder with a similar profile. That doesn’t look like a tactical decision, it seems more like a market issue. As Kroos himself put it, there simply aren’t many players like that out there, and the ones who come close are incredibly hard to get.
So what’s left is a team that’s still searching for a way to truly command the midfield. The talent is there, the physical strength is there, the speed is there too, but the brain, the one that connected it all, is missing.
Kroos raises concerns about player burnout
Even in retirement, Kroos hasn’t lost his voice. He’s been honest and thoughtful, and he didn’t hesitate to praise the coaching transition, calling it good for everyone involved. “A change that benefits everyone. The club, Xabi, who wanted to take a step forward in his career, and Carlo, who won so much and landed a great job in Brazil.” That kind of calm insight only comes from someone who’s lived it, someone who understands how much stability off the field matters to performance on it. Still, he made it clear — it’s way too early to judge what this version of Real Madrid is going to be.
There’s something else he touched on, and it matters just as much, the overload of matches. Even with Madrid preparing to face PSG in yet another final, Kroos didn’t hold back when it came to criticizing the new Club World Cup format. “No one asks the players what they think, so it’s more money and less rest. That leads to two things, more injuries, which we’ve already been seeing for a while, and a drop in the quality of the games, not to mention the motivation of key players.”
No dressing it up. No trying to spin it. Just a direct message from someone who’s been through every level of the modern game and knows how it really works behind the curtain. For him, the problem isn’t just about physical exhaustion, it’s about what the sport is turning into when money gets pushed ahead of everything else.